Segregated prom

Check out this disturbing story from the New York Times. In a sign that the Jim Crow South is still alive, schools in rural Georgia continue to hold two separate proms, one for white students and one for black students.

Students quoted in the story don’t seem to want the separate proms, but their parents do. The reason? “Tradition.”

Racially segregated proms have been held in Montgomery County — where about two-thirds of the population is white — almost every year since its schools were integrated in 1971. Such proms are, by many accounts, longstanding traditions in towns across the rural South, though in recent years a number of communities have successfully pushed for change.

Scott Waldman

One Response

This is just another sad example of the stoic south clinging to past. People wonder why there’s such divisiveness in this country, well look at Georgia, who’s 1930’s reality seems so foriegn to people above the Mason Dixon Line. Many of those states do not have teacher unions, have state controlled curriculum and pay teachers the worst salaries. Teachers would help advocate for the students with protection and students would have a better education if the culture of this region where radically different. People think that because Obama won that segregation doesn’t exist and equality is real, well read above and think again. People complain about the northeast’s taxes etc, well we have better roads, highways, schools, and culture. Its just like buying a product (TV, Computer, bed), you pay for what you get. I’m glad my children won’t have to go to a segregated prom.